I didn’t set out to be a writer. It happened by accident, somewhere between a half-finished sketch and a notebook full of half-thought ideas. Back then, I was a teenager with more curiosity than direction, filling pages because it felt like the only way to keep my thoughts from spilling everywhere else. One of my oldest friends likes to remind me he can’t remember a time I didn’t have a notebook in my hand. He says I was always scribbling or sketching, usually both.
It was at his house, during one of those long afternoons that used to stretch forever, when someone suggested I could write and illustrate my own book. I never did—but the idea never left. Over the years I’ve written stories inspired by other people’s art, and drawn illustrations for stories that weren’t mine. Maybe that’s the closest I’ve come to answering that old dare.
These days, my rituals are quieter, more deliberate. I start with coffee, smokes, and a notebook—that’s the constant. The rest depends on mood. Sometimes I need silence; other times, I scroll through playlists until I find something that matches the weather inside my head. The room is dimly lit, Guppy purring on the desk, both of us waiting for my next move. It’s not glamorous, but it’s home—the small ritual that turns chaos into coherence.
I don’t consider writing a hobby. But apparently, some people around me do. They say it like it’s harmless, even complimentary, as if writing were just another way to pass the time. Most days, it pisses me off—not because I crave validation, but because it ignores the time, discipline, and mental excavation it takes to build worlds, shape characters, or research a single line that rings true.
I’ve spent weeks turning over ideas before I ever write a word, sometimes months just mapping the geography of a story or tracing the emotional logic of a character. That’s not leisure; that’s labor—creative, invisible, and deeply consuming. Yet somehow, the work only “counts” if it’s published, printed, or profitable. Maybe that’s the illusion people live by: that creation isn’t real until it leaves your desk.
I’ve read the books. I’ve done the study. I’m not waiting for a permission slip to call myself a writer. Still, I can admit that sometimes fresh eyes help—someone catching a rhythm I missed, a sentence that stumbles, or an idea that needs to breathe differently. But that’s collaboration, not validation. The work itself has always been serious enough.
I remember the first time I saw my name in print. I was just a kid then, with childish dreams about becoming something I didn’t fully understand. But even at that age, I knew it was the only thing that gave me genuine joy and peace. It felt right. Like I’d found the one place where my head and my heart could finally speak the same language.
Even when I draw, I’m still telling stories. Sometimes, when I get it right, a single sketch can hold the whole narrative—the emotion, the silence between moments, the pulse of something unfinished but alive.
As an adult, that sense of wonder changed shape. I never thought my writing would go anywhere; most of it was just stories I’d tell my wife over coffee or late-night laughter. When she smiled, I’d rewrite. When she made that face—the one that said, “you’ve hit something”—I’d dig deeper. For a long time, I was defensive about my writing, too fragile to take a critique, too unsure to trust my own voice.
But somewhere along the way, I stopped chasing perfection and started writing from that place where the magic happens. I write from the soul, not the head. It took me forever to realize that for myself, even though I’d taught it a thousand times in workshops. Funny how the truths we teach others take the longest to reach home.
So maybe my favorite pastime isn’t writing itself, at least not in the way people imagine. It’s telling the stories that insist on being told—the ones that show up uninvited and refuse to leave quietly. Not the planned ones or the well-outlined projects, but the whispers that come when I’m half-awake, the flickers that make me reach for a pen even when I swore I was done for the night.
Those are the stories that remind me why I started. They aren’t about publishing or approval or anyone’s idea of success. They’re about listening—to memory, to imagination, to the things that ache to take shape. I suppose that’s what writing has always been for me: not a hobby, not even work, but a kind of surrender.
A way of being in conversation with something larger than myself.
Memoirs of Madness 